I got back from Leadership camp on Sunday. Awesome time. The worst part of the day was being blasted awake at 6.30am, but after that, it was all good. They ran teams of us through a series of problem solving activities – get out of prison, get over a pit with these materials, build this as fast as possible, etc. – followed by debrief sessions that put things in context of leadership. It was surprisingly effective, given that I never thought that leadership was a skill that could be “taught”. It was all incredibly fun, and effective. Activities finished before dinner and after that we were pretty much left up to our own devices (which meant getting pissed, for most of us). Exhausting. Thank goodness for the four day week this week…

Recruitment – Been attending all the information seminars this week. Deloitte Consulting on Monday, Bain on Tuesday, Port Jackson Partners on Wednesday and The Firm yesterday (that’d be McKinsey). All strategic consulting firms (except for DC, which is more mixed), all high powered, and all highly desirable places to work at, careerwise. Next week is BCG, and I’ll be interested to see how they present compared to McKinsey which was distinctly unflashy. Not that they need to be flashy, they already have a Reputation. I finally have developed my resume to a point where I’m satisfied with it. The resumes start going in next week, with interview offers being extended late March/early April. Working in strategy consulting would be an absolute blast (the travel, training, diverse experience, networking, money – it’s all there). However, the calibre of applicants and the acceptance rate (<<1%) for firms in that line of business makes all applications daunting. (As a result, I’m applying for as many strat consult firms as I can.)

The Ferrari F1 Team recently fired the whole Pit-Crew to employ some young unemployed youths from the Bankstown – Marrickville Area. The decision to hire them was brought on by a documentary on how unemployed youth in the Bankstown – Lakemba area can remove a set of car wheels in less than 6 sec without proper equipment. This was thought to be a good move as most races are won & lost in the pits these days & Ferrari would have an advantage. However Ferrari soon encountered a major problem not only were “da boyz” changing the tyres in under 6 seconds but within 12 sec they had resprayed, rebirthed
and sold the vehicle to the McLaren Team.

This movie is long, drawn out, and you really need some inkling about Afro-american history in the 60s and 70s. Which I didn’t have. But I learnt some stuff from it. (Of course, the problem with this is that I have no idea what is historically accurate and what is not.) If you’re one of the majority of people that have no idea why Ali is revered such, other than the vague notion that he’s a “really good boxer”, this movie tells you why. If you come looking for action though, as the trailers make it out to be, this movie is not for you.

After easily blowing a few hours playing the beta of War3, I’m still trying to get used to it. Blizzard began developing War3 as an “RPS” (marketing speak standing for role-playing strategy). Since Blizzard’s reputation is such that they’ve yet to produce a game that’s any less than dazzling, they’ve been pretty much forced to innovate to get out of the traditional RTS groove which is becoming stale. War3 still is an RTS, but it has a much different feel to it. The two main things that change gameplay seem to be the low unit cap (90 food units) and relatively low availability of gold which can only be collected at a constant rate. The focus indeed has been moved off pumping out peons and collecting resources at astronomical rates. Due to this, it is not possible to raise multiple mass armies and the importance of single units, and upgrades, is amplified. I found myself going around the map with, at most, one or two groups of men led by a hero. The hero has a town portal spell so if someone attacks your town while your band of merry men is away, they can get back quickly to defend.

All this forces games to be quite quick – you’ll find hour long games are a rarity. I haven’t decided whether I like this new gaming style. It’s definitely different and will require getting used to. War3 unfortunately lacks the magic of War2 (what happened to walling-in?) but, well, we haven’t seen the finished product yet. The collector’s edition looks like a nice package to pick up.

A transparent hard drive to go with that transparent cube case please. Funky. A case with a window is still fairly boring – nothing moves – but, I really dig the idea of seeing those hard drive heads skitter around over the platter.

Sydney is now suffering a 48 hour bus strike. It’s not a “free-fare” day like they normally hold, they’ve taken all buses off the road. The strike is expected to impact 600,000 people over the next few days.

Traffic on major roads, as can be expected, is an absolute car park. Especially from places whose only available form of public transport are buses (UNSW and the eastern suburbs, for instance). On the way to work the people waiting on roadsides for – what I can only assume – car pools was readily noticeable. And of course, there are bound to be people who just haven’t heard about the strike. There is a bus stop right outside this building, and sure enough when I was walking in for work, there was a Korean girl standing there waiting. I told her about the strike, which as expected, she hadn’t heard of. It must’ve thrown a spanner into the works with her plans for the day. Kev, who lives across the road from me took up a tutoring position at UTS. Unable to find an available car, and unwilling to take a taxi, he is walking to UTS (should take a little over an hour). Then he’s grabbing a lift with me back (probably will take the same amount of time with the traffic! :).

Do blogs really have an influence on things? It’s a little about the quantity versus “quality” (the word “quality” being loosely attributed to formalised mainstream media) debate. And although many westerners foster dislike of mainstream media, it does have a moderating role in society. You only have to look at a free-media-less country such China (the Xinhua news agency is state-moderated and effectively, state-run) to see the downsides. I think some people put too much self-importance in blogs. If you’re an influential voice, it doesn’t matter what medium you choose to speak through, you will be heard. Some media are better than others (people will listen to more “official” sources rather than a throng of rumour), though.

Ok that was a strange voicemail… Someone rang up my mobile, got my voicemail, said a couple words (“hello?” and “ring”), and then placed my voicemail on callwaiting (the Telstra callwaiting piano music came on). Riiight.

Uni commences today, start of my final year as an undergrad. The most I got to check out of o-week last week was a view of the stalls up the uni walkway as I drove to and back from work on Anzac Parade. Dave got back from Malaysia last Friday and my apartment is no longer empty. Hmm… not that Dave is home much, but you know what I mean :). People ask me if living alone is, well, lonely. For me, not really. Over the past few months I’ve enjoyed the fact that I have the whole place to myself, and the privacy that comes with that. I think loneliness only sets in with boredom, and I haven’t had much time to be bored lately. Actually, the only times I’m really home are during weekday evenings (zoned out in front of the tv or doing menial housework). Weekends, if there’s nothing else on, I’m back at Camden. Anyhow, time to take a deep breath and launch into a new semester.

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